I left the drums as they are a pre recorded backing track and all attempts to improve them made them worse. :lol: The trick to this seems to be tinkering and playing with it. That is where my chops are weak because so much of the recording I have done was years ago with a 4 track cassette studio. This digital stuff is another animal. I will continue to tinker and play as doing the actual playing is easy. I have lots of drum tracks and I can record the songs in a couple of takes because they are songs I play all the time. Then the long part of the process starts. Mixing, EG, production! You guys are all a big help too by the way.
"Work hard, rock hard, eat hard, sleep hard,
grow big, wear glasses if you need 'em."
-- The Webb Wilder Credo --
Cool thread TR, great playing and lots of great input so far.
Like most everyone, I like the second mix better, it's more dynamic and 'live' sounding.
I'm with Laz re. the vocal reverb:
Perhaps too much "echo" on the vocal reverb, so it doesn't sound like part of the same performance.
I'd cut that back.
Re. the intro guitar tone, for me it's as much a volume issue. It's not loud enough, so the track starts kind of flat and doesn't grab your attention. That may be tied up in EQ/reverb issues Roy and others touched on, I don't know, but something really punchy at the start is important. Then you can subtly fade it back a bit when it settles into riff mode inside the track.
Looking forward to V3! :)
Don
Yeah, I should keep tweaking. Good suggestions!
"Work hard, rock hard, eat hard, sleep hard,
grow big, wear glasses if you need 'em."
-- The Webb Wilder Credo --
OK, couldn't sleep. Put on the head phones and started remixing. I can't wait to see what Laz comes up with but you know what? I think this thread is pushing me to try harder and I am learning so much. Yay guitar community! So what does every one think of version III?
"Work hard, rock hard, eat hard, sleep hard,
grow big, wear glasses if you need 'em."
-- The Webb Wilder Credo --
ding ding ding ding!!!!!! We have a winner! :D :D
The guitar tone is back. A bigger hole opened up for the drums? Much much better mix. It's as if you took the best of both worlds. It's also the best I've ever heard your vocals. This thing screamed of that "real thing" feel.
Soooooo, fess up! How'd you do it? What did you change? What steps? etc, etc...?
Roy
"I wonder if a composer ever intentionally composed a piece that was physically impossible to play and stuck it away to be found years later after his death, knowing it would forever drive perfectionist musicians crazy." - George Carlin
That is rockin! Nicely done.
+1 on spilling the beans on what you did. :lol:
Don
Jumped off the network at work so I could listen since I rarely go online at home. The last take sounds pretty good I only heard a short amount of the first but with these cheap laptop speaker I didn't really hear big differences but since everyone else has mentioned it's a big improvement I'm sure it is.
There's really nothing I can tell you that would matter. The playing was good the recording was good.
I like distorted guitars like you but maybe the distortion could be turned down a bit similar to what Alan suggested I think he was talking about Crazy Train though.
Time to get Uncle Fester out on the road!!
"It's all about stickin it to the man!"
It's a long way to the top if you want to rock n roll!
Well, for starters I mixed it through headphones late at night and not immediately after recording it.
Step one ........ listen to the origional recording from KISS' first album.
Lead guitar was right, rhythm left. I had that backwards.
The big thing was I noticed they were hard right and hard left. I had only slightly split them. I widened them considerably right and left. That is the hole for the drums to come through that Roy mentions!
I used the gain adjustment to even out the volume throughout.
Took away some reverb from the vocal.
Added backing vocals.
Pretty much what everyone suggested.
As Chris mentions, it does sound like the gain is pegged but it isnt. :?: My Sans Amp has 3 settings for each amp voice, clean, high gain and hot wired. I used high gain, the middle one. I had the gain just over half way up. I'm gonna try using less next recording but this is truely half what this thing is capable of gain wise. You ought to hear the Mesa Boogie setting on hot wired. :lol: Very early Metallica type sound. The Fender setting is the cleanest. TF used that for the bass on Crazy Train. I'm gonna tweak that one next.
Thanks guys!
"Work hard, rock hard, eat hard, sleep hard,
grow big, wear glasses if you need 'em."
-- The Webb Wilder Credo --
Version III http://soundcloud.com/wickedfester/cold-gin-iii
I sent this through the studio monitors. . . .
Holy Brick Wall Limiting, Batman!
The overall mix sounds like it would be pretty good, but it's pretty obvious from the lack of dynamics. and compression artifacts, that you hit it pretty hard with a limiter. There's some compressor pumping going on, I'm hearing some clamping, and the dynamics have been pretty much crushed completely out.
Can you do another mix without the limiter? I might be able to offer some helpful comments then
Playing guitar and never playing for others is like studying medicine and never working in a clinic.
Didn't use a limiter?????? Could that be something Audacity is doing to it?
"Work hard, rock hard, eat hard, sleep hard,
grow big, wear glasses if you need 'em."
-- The Webb Wilder Credo --
It's amazing what reversing some panning can do for a mix. That, and widening the pan makes a big difference. I heard the shift right off the bat this morning.
I love the guitar tones. I think it's a preference thing at this point. They're popping up and out and have that Kiss flavor. They were coming through before on version 2, but I just liked this better.
I'm running thsi through my laptop and out through headphones. No studio monitors. (I'm 355 miles and about 1,000 feet up from home :) ) I can't hear what Moonrider can hear, but that could be a combo of headphones vs monitors, bad ears and inexperience. I defer to him on that end. This is another reason why a compressor is probably a dangerous thing in my hends still. Are you using a compressor? Maybe the threshold and ratio a shutting down to hard? I really don't know.
On a related note, I have a plug-in called a Maximizer that really blasts up a mix, but it doesn't take very long at all to get sick of listening to in. It's made a track or two sound interesting, though. I think it's really just a different form of Limiter.
I wonder if the LAME MP3 encoder is nailing it? That's probably a stretch, though.
Roy
"I wonder if a composer ever intentionally composed a piece that was physically impossible to play and stuck it away to be found years later after his death, knowing it would forever drive perfectionist musicians crazy." - George Carlin
Yeah, not using any compression at all! Maybe the Sans Amp is squashing the guitar? I might try a redo with micing an amp.
"Work hard, rock hard, eat hard, sleep hard,
grow big, wear glasses if you need 'em."
-- The Webb Wilder Credo --
OK ..... so the Sans Amp might be the devil? How does this sound. Disclaimer! No Compression! No limiter!
http://soundcloud.com/wickedfester/cold-gin-kiss-cover-take-4
Peavey Classic 30. No pedals. Post gain at 6 (these go to 12). Shure SM57 on center close mic and Audio Technica for distant mic. Epiphone Les Paul Standard. Miller Light to chanel Ace Frehley!
PS Wife now officially hates Cold Gin. :roll: :mrgreen:
Oh Crap! I think I owe Laz some new guitar tracks to work with! :shock: Working on it......
Is the "pumping" gone now Doug? I did notice it too .... :oops:
"Work hard, rock hard, eat hard, sleep hard,
grow big, wear glasses if you need 'em."
-- The Webb Wilder Credo --
Didn't use a limiter?????? Could that be something Audacity is doing to it?
Are you using any of the Audacity Effects? Are you "normalizing" or amplifying the wav or mp3?
Playing guitar and never playing for others is like studying medicine and never working in a clinic.
OK ..... so the Sans Amp might be the devil? How does this sound. Disclaimer! No Compression! No limiter!
http://soundcloud.com/wickedfester/cold-gin-kiss-cover-take-4
Peavey Classic 30. No pedals. Post gain at 6 (these go to 12). Shure SM57 on center close mic and Audio Technica for distant mic. Epiphone Les Paul Standard. Miller Light to chanel Ace Frehley!
PS Wife now officially hates Cold Gin. :roll: :mrgreen:
Oh Crap! I think I owe Laz some new guitar tracks to work with! :shock: Working on it......
Is the "pumping" gone now Doug? I did notice it too .... :oops:
Right where the bass/drums comes in, something is crushing the bejabbers out of the whole mix. The guitar is just kicking right along (NICE tones), the bass and drums come in and the mix implodes like a broken light bulb. If Soundcloud is doing "processing" they may be smashing it. Any way you can send the mp3 to doug at southernroots dot info so I can do a comparison?
Playing guitar and never playing for others is like studying medicine and never working in a clinic.
